The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1938. THE SECURITY BILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 212, 8 September 1938, Page 10

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1938. THE SECURITY BILL.

For the cause that locks astittmnea. For the wrong that need* reaietamm, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

The Social Security Bill, now being quickly passed through its committee stage in the House, is divided into four parts. The nrst is concerned with administration, and the second with " monetary benefits,"' which —as the Government members have stressed and will stress more in the time remaining before the election —are liberal and comprehensive. This section of the bill provides in large part for the extension of existing social services, and, except in ease of the sickness benefit, whieh is new, it should not create undue auniinis.rative difficulties. The same cannot be raid of part three of the bill, concerned with medical, hospital and related benefits. To begin with, it is being passed by the Hou>e in the knowledge that the medical profession is strongly opposed to it. No one can foresee the exact nature of the difficulties which will arise if this opposition is maintained, but obviously they will be considerable. The Minister of Health blandly assured the House last night that the Government anticipated that the medical profession will co-operate in operating the State health service, but there are no signs visible to the public that support this expectation. The public should therefore understand that the bill, when passed, will amount to no more than a promise of a health service. The date of the beginning of the service will be uncertain (nominally it is April 1 next, but the Minister is given power in the bill to postpone it), and the nature of the service may be considerably different from that outlined in the bill. What may be called the " operation orders " have still to be framed, and framed by parties one of whom has declared its utter lack of confidence in the whole scheme.

Both the cash benefits and the health service are dependent on finance, and nothing the Government spokesmen have said —and on this section of the bill they have said too little —removes the impression that the financial basis is inadequate, perhaps not for the first year, bat for the succeeding years in which costs will rise. Mr. Nash's assumption is that the total national income will be £174,000,000; Mr. Maddex, reporting only a few months ago, assumed that _it would be £150,000,000. This figure was given him from a Government source, and we are now invited to believe that somebody blundered. If so, the blander was on the side of prudence. It should be realised, too, that this national income, from which contributions of 1/ in the £1 will be payable, consists in part of money raised by the State, either by borrowing or taxing, and spent in wages. If for any reason Government borrowing had to be sharply reduced, there would be a reduction also in therevenue of the Social Security Fond,'while at the same time the calls upon it would increase, for men taken t off, say, public' works, would immediately claim unemployment benefit. Sat of greater importance is the fact that the Dominion's income from exports, whieh is a large part of the national ineome, is , a constantly fluctuating amount, and that downward fluctuations are reflected in reduced earnings throughout the population and in redueed taxation revenue. In sueh times the outflow from the fond is likely to be greatest, while the inflow is lowest.

Every fond, of coarse, is exposed to such conditions, and the fact that they may occur is not an argument against social security schemes. But it is an Argument against launching an.extravagant scheme, and that is the principal argument against the scheme now before the House. A great deal of money is to be devoted to raising the general level of social service benefits, but it is to be done at the risk of the security of the whole scheme*